“In from the Cold War”: a colloquium on Eastern Europe, Africa and cultural diplomacy during the cold war

This week, AiW Guest Katarzyna Kubin continues her series examining the relationship between Africa and Eastern/Central Europe with this guest piece by Iolanda Vasile about the colloquium “In from the Cold War: Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War”, organized in Bucharest, Romania in June 2016.

When in 2013 on arriving to Angola I was welcomed in my native language of Romanian, I knew there was a story behind it. At that time, I was doing research for my PhD on the role of women in the liberation movements in Angola, focused on the 1945-1961 period. I was surprised to find that the daughters of one of the women I interviewed for my research were fluent in Romanian, because they had studied in Romania in the late 1970’s under a bilateral agreement. Inspired by their story, some months later, I searched the archives of the Securitate[1] in Romania…

Financial & institutional support

This project is supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, under number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0335.
Contract no. 2 issued on 01/10/2015.